I took my first warm shower in three months today. I’m totally serious. It has been a long, hot summer at my house and every shower has been a cold one. Not cool, but icy. And that’s with the air conditioner and the ceiling fans going. Maybe it’s hormones making me sweat, but when I woke up to a below sixty degrees temp this morning, I felt reborn!
Lots of people consider spring to be a time of renewal and rebirth. New plants sprouting after the cold, dark winter. For me, autumn has that feel. Yes the plants may be dying off some, but in SoCal we grow all year round, and I have a garden full of sprouts right now, enjoying cooler nights and warm, sunny days.
I can walk outside again with risking heat stroke. I can wear something other than shorts and tanks and sandals. Soup is palatable once more and baking? Yes I can turn on the oven for banana bread or cookies or pizzas. It’s nothing short of miraculous.
So the temperature is to my liking once again. Yay for me. But what does this say about the climate in general? I’ve lived in SoCal long enough to recall when we didn’t need air conditioning at home or in school, and we still used the heater in the winter. In about fifty years, that has flip-flopped. No one needs the heater anymore, but you’d better have A/C or you’ll be searching for public Cool Zones all summer. Unfortunately, you can’t eat, sleep or bring your pets into the library so pray your house or apartment has functioning A/C and that you can afford the electricity bill that comes with it.
All these thoughts are my way of being worried about the climate and how it is changing. Whatever you feel about the cause, you can’t deny that the weather is changing. And what will happen to those little plants I like to grow in my garden and to the crops in the farmers’ fields as a result? This summer I had plants whose leaves actually burned when we had a week of one hundred degree plus temps. The soil was well-watered so the plants didn’t die outright, the heat from the sun just killed the leaves. Hot days and less food? That’s a scary story.
I have always been impressed when authors find ways to incorporate “important topics” into their narratives. One of my favorites is Elif Shafak’s “There are Rivers in the Sky” which incorporates climate change (and several other societal issues) into a riveting narrative that spans continents and generations. Mark Doerr’s “Cloud Cuckoo Land” does the same thing with environmental concerns. Maybe one day I can figure out how to do that too….
Until the day I create my first work of literary fiction, please continue to enjoy the romance stories I write. The happy endings I imagine don’t just apply to love stories though. We can imagine, and create, a happy ending to our planet’s story as well.